Up High
by ObsidianWolf001
Summary: Eren went to college to escape the ground, learning to build his own way to fly. When he gets his new, all too observant roommate, will that man out him as the criminal gouging the walls? Or will something else be revealed? Modern AU, because we all know Attack On Titan is hard to write for in context. Future explicit content is the reason for the rating. Obsidian only writing.
1. Chapter 1

_**For all intents and purposes of this fic, Levi's age has been changed a bit. Since Isayama hasn't released anything older than thirty, I can't really say how much so, but I always headcanon him at just over twenty, maybe twenty two. Eren's age has also changed, considering a fifteen/sixteen year old in college (unless it was Armin that is) would be a little interesting, especially in Eren's department. Adjust the other ages appropriately to fit if you would. I see Eren as about twenty in this fic and Levi at around twenty-six. Thank you, and please enjoy.**_

 _ **No seriously. Please. Enjoy.**_

Eren loved to be up high. It was the only place where no one focused on him. They focused on trying to stay alive. Innate human instinct was to try to keep their feet on solid ground, where they could control their surroundings. In the air, there were no guarantees. It was part of the reason that the university had trouble keeping patrols and their buildings intact. They were always fixing gashes, that appeared mysteriously in strange parts of the outside of the building. The Physics department had been questioned, and the art department, even come through Eren's engineering department. But Eren's secret hadn't been revealed. His creation, the creation that gave him his wings at night, hadn't been found, and Eren was not being incarcerated.

"Eren!"

Eren glanced up to see Armin standing there, and he put down the Tig welder to greet his Department Head. Armin was the same age, but he'd worked harder than Eren at the studying parts, and had made his way out of high school with a degree, making his way to Department Head in their sophomore year of University. Eren just studied for the applications, so he could stay up high. Armin stopped in front of him, smiling.

"Hey, Armin." He answered. "'What's up?"

"How are they going?" Armin asked. "The wings?"

Eren rolled his eyes. "I don't call them wings, Armin. That's your name for them. And they're coming. The second pair is being a bitch though, so it's not my fault. The size difference means that I have to tweak the engine so that it doesn't jerk you off of your feet. So it gets louder, and it can't be loud, or we'll both get caught." He explained, looking around before quieting himself. "The abandoned room at the end of the photography hall that was supposed to be a dark room is exactly the space I needed. I've got my pair hidden in my room under my bed, but yours is in there for now."

Armin nodded. "I've never liked flying, so maybe you'll be able to change my mind with these things. The way you talk about them... They make you happier than I've heard you in a while." He explained.

Eren looked at the watch on his wrist. "I'm sure they do. I've gotta go." He answered, pulling on his brown jacket and pulling his satchel on over it. "Talk to you later?"

Armin nodded, looking a bit sad. "You don't be a stranger, okay? You've been distant since we've been here. We never talk anymore. You only obssess over these things and even Mikasa has barely seen you." He answered.

Eren just kept walking. "Yeah, okay." He answered, walking out into the hallway.

He knew what Armin meant. He hadn't been the same since he'd lost his mother. The last bit of his family he'd had. His father had died earlier for whatever reason, some illness or trauma, his mother never said, and then she'd died when the house had burned down. Eren had been out with Armin when he was supposed to be in bed. Mikasa had been with her family, of which Eren had never met, and she'd come straight there when Eren had called on his cell phone. They'd treated Eren for smoke inhalation and third degree burns that he hid like the plague. He didn't sleep with his jacket off. He couldn't face those burns. What if his mother was there when he looked?

Eren went up to his dorm, in need of tweaking the so-called wings to calm himself, and settled his head against the wall of the elevator as it hoisted him up. He sighed. It was a long anniversary day.

When he got off on his floor, it was quiet as per usual. This was mostly a philosophy and literature hall, so the few people that were here weren't the loud, rowdy frat guys that plagued the rest of the school, or crazy sorority chicks. When the college had moved him and a few other science department guys into the dorms, a few people had been ejected due to crazy complaints on both sides, and settled elsewhere. But Eren's roommate had moved out after their mid term graduation, and he'd never been saddled with a new one. School was near drawing to a close, and the summer dorm dwellers were mostly his dorm, and would have run of the school. He'd need a new place to fly.

Approaching his door, he noticed something odd. His door was cracked open, not like it had been bashed in, but still. He reached into his satchel and grabbed his switchblade, then moved to the door quietly.

He nearly screamed. There wasn't a ransacked, tiraded room. That would almost have been better. The room had instead been made tidy and clean, the polished desk where he usually left a scattered amalgom of parts to make Armin's smaller scale set of gear was perfectly clear, almost shining, and there was a clear bin sitting on the top with two more inside that were labeled 'junk' in big bold letters. The computer was clear of the model he'd had up on it for forever, and even had been shut down. The clothes he'd had laid out purposefully on the floor were in a bin, and his clean swimming gear was in the same bin, where it had been laid under the other clothes. He glanced to the bedside table and it was clean of all of the gels and creams that he'd ripped the labels off of. They were in the trash can.

Forget nearly. Eren screamed at the short shit standing in his room with a spray bottle and a rag cleaning the window tint off the damned thing.

"No!" He screamed. "No, no, no!" He tried to frantically open the computer back up and bring the unfinished model back up again. "No! What the hell! Who are you?" Eren shouted.

The intruder stopped, blinking, and turned to Eren's panic very stoically. "I'm Levi. I just transferred here from the Forensics department hall. It was overcrowded." He answered. "Who are you?"

"I'm Eren, the guy who lives in this room! What the hell!" Eren pulled his hair in frustration. "It's all gone! That model took me three months to get that far! I don't have backups! Gah!" He dove for the bin and the glass jar that had leaked into it. "Do you know how much this costs? This was supposed to last all week, and that was the only time I would have money to get the new stuff." He yanked his swimming gear out of the clothes bin and tossed them onto his bed. "Wait, where are my sheets? What the hell- stop! Just stop!" Levi had turned to put the still dripping glass back into the can, but he stopped, staring at the dripping, expensive pain gel that was pooling on the table. "You have not explained why the hell you are here destroying my system with your OCD, because that prototype took longer than the model to get where it had been and many healing bones and wounds to make."

Levi lifted a brow. "I didn't say anything because you were too busy panicking about empty tubes of nameless gels and a mechanical Frankenstein. And I can't tell whether I mean the computer or the...whatever that amalgom is that I put, very much as they were found, in the plastic containers I had extra." He said.

Eren felt his eyes blow wide in rage, and he almost stepped out of his body for a moment before he was snatching every single tube out of the can. There was more than enough that he would need until the end of the week in each, but that wasn't the point. He lifted them out of the bin and laid them in a neat line like zombie soldiers along the edge of the bedside table in the order he used them, and stated what they were and why he needed each of them, and their prices.

When he got to the glass bottle, being conscientious of the dripping gel with a cupped hand under them, he lifted it to inspect the cracks in the glass. It wasn't anything he couldn't fix, but he'd need his mig welder, which was in that plastic bin with the 'amalgom'. "I can fix this and save what little is left, but I need to get to the welder in that bin, if you really did put it in there. But this is a numbing gel that I need at night to calm the pain in my arms. It's about fifty dollars and ounce. This is sixteen do the math." He suggested.

Levi stepped over to the plastic bin and popped the top off of it. He removed the plastic boxes inside that made Eren's heart ease just a little with each one he looked at, then looked in before selecting the two welders he had, the normal welder, and the mig in his right hand. "Which one of these is the welder?" He asked.

"The one I need is in your right hand. The one on the left is a smaller version of the one you see in movies, and you fucked up a little disconnecting it from the gas tank. After you plug that in, open the window you were scrubbing the tint off of. Which, by the way, I will also have to replace, as they came standard but I had to replace on my own after my last roommate moved out with a bang." Eren explained.

Levi prepared the mig welder nearly perfectly, replacing the normal welder back into the plastic box it had come from. He opened the window, and then came over again with a cup so Eren could place the leaking glass inside, and handed him a clean rag. Eren sighed, wiping his hands on it and moving to shut off the gas valve.

"In summary, the mess that it looked like to you had purpose. We need to work something out if this is going to work." Eren said. "I haven't laid a complaint on anyone so far as I have been here, and I have never been on the recieving end of one either. I would like to keep it that way."

Levi was trying to air out the room a bit faster with a sheet. "I get it. I hate mess, is all. I wasn't told I had an obsessive tinker as a roommate, and I came in and saw your quote unquote system, and I went a little nutty." He explained.

Eren sighed. He would have to explain his "system" to get this guy to leave it alone. He stood up and stretched. "I lay the clothes on the floor because in the morning my ams are weak, and I can't handle the weight of the drawers. Lifting them is a chore, so I can't use the closet either. The swimming gear was clean, and I laid those out anticipating being worn the fuck out when I came in today even though I have time set up at the pool." He answered. "The computer still has some tweaking to be done before it's perfectly reliable, but if I leave it on and don't try to save anything, it works just fine. That's why it's mostly fans actually. It needs lots of cooling."

Levi didn't change his expression while Eren set up the mig welder and set it off a few times. He merely watched Eren, ignoring the mess on the table to watch what he did. "How will that fix the dripping glass?" Levi asked.

Eren smiled a little. After the initial shock of being absolutely pissed off at his new clean freak of a roommate, the guy was actually relatively nice seeming. "Empty the bottle into that cup, and clean it off. This thing should be ready by then." He answered.

Levi nodded, taking the cup into the bathroom. Eren watched him use what looked like a miniature squeegee to clean the outside of the glass and slide the gel on the outside carefully into the cup again before he poured what was left in the bottle with the rest of it's contents and rinsed the inside out. He brought it back out and handed it carefully to Eren, leaning against the wall and watching.

"If I were in the shop they'd be yelling at me to put on a welding helmet, but since this one doesn't send sparks, I'll just not." Eren told the other guy.

He pressed the tip to the crack in the glass and held it there for a moment, starting the process, and slowly, carefully heating the glass to melting process. Levi watched it, all silently, and when it was finished, reached out to touch it. Eren warded his hand away. He dug through the boxes for the welding tongs he had, thick heavy duty metal that could withstand it for what time it takes to carry the cargo to the sink. He turned on blazing hot water, testing it with his hand before slowly adding cold to the mix and then turning the warm off so that the glass was slowly cooled and smoothed at the same time.

He pulled it out and there came a perfectly smooth bottle. Levi took it from his hands then. "That's amazing." He declared. "I thought it only worked with metal."

Eren shook his head. "A tig welder would have been better for it, but the tig is back in the engineering hall labs." He explained. It wasn't a total lie. The Engineering department's tig welder was in the engineering hall. _His_ was in the old abandoned darkroom where his stuff was.

After the fluid-like gel was put back into the newly fixed bottle, Eren set it onto his side table, not shocked to see the old mess had been cleaned up without so much as a swirl in the polish of the wood to show it was there.

"So, now that my system has been explained, let's try this again since you know the basics of my routine and I know about your OCD." Eren said, extending his hand. "I'm Eren Jaeger, I'm an Engineering major with very little sense in his head."

Levi smirked, taking his hand. It was a nice expression to see on his seemingly unexpressive face. He didn't make many expressions if the lack of lines in his face were any indication. That would be interesting for him to try to figure this guy out. He'd make a good interrogator, but for some reason that brought to mind him standing nonchalantly against a wall with a partner beside him at the interrogation in a dungeon, some kid across the way with crazy eyes staring him down. And that made him uncomfortable for some reason.

"I'm Levi Ackerman. Forensics major and cleanfreak. Which I suppose you kind of knew." He answered.

Eren's eyebrows shot up. "Ackerman? You related to Mikasa Ackerman?" He asked.

Levi gave nothing away in his face. "I'm her older brother." He answered. "You're that Eren Jaeger?"

Eren blinked. "What Eren Jaeger, what did she say about me?" He asked.

His face softened somehow. "For starters, after she went AWOL for two days, she came back home and told us all that you lost your mother in the fire." He answered softly.

Eren released Levi's hand and pulled his own back to his side. He had to itch his arm before he shoved his hands into his pockets. "People die. It happens." He went and snatched his swim clothes out of the bin. "Do me a favor and don't touch my bed again please." He blinked. "Wait, where are you sleeping? There's only that bed."

Levi watched him walking out. "I sleep in a chair." He answered.

Ah. Eren just turned and walked out.


	2. Chapter 2

Days went by and Levi hardly saw his sister's tragic best friend at all. Eren would pop in and pop off his jeans before pulling on some shorts to go swimming in, all in about five minutes each afternoon for a week. He often came in for a few hours of sleep in the wee few of the morning, and would fall asleep beside Levi's chair on the couch, or face down on his bed with his jacket still, or in the tub as one rare instance of Levi coming in from a night out on his own at a tea shop to go to the bathroom had proven.

In the meantime, Levi kept up the room. Eren seemed to chage under the tools and equipment being moved, so Levi left Eren's desk to his discretion. Eren didn't question Levi when he was there to see Levi's oddities, like the three minute showers, or the two or three hours of sleep he got when Eren did sleep in the room at all. Eren seemed to all but ignore the shorter, quiet Forensics student. Which left Levi plenty of leeway to practice his newest hobby.

Watching Eren.

Levi had always loved to watch people. In the Marines, he had been assigned as an interrogator, where his ability to unnerve even the strongest of men with his silence was legend, and his ability to watch and learn was key. He always left the ex-Marine side active and prepared, and it had taken to Eren's odd response the first day without fail. He was intriqued by the tense Engineering major in a way he had never been intrigued by anyone before. He had studied the quick way Eren handled the gels and liquids he had championed, the way he never took off the soft, smooth compression sleeves he wore, the way he grit his teeth in the morning after putting on his shirt. He studied everything. He pretended sleep when Eren would rifle in the closet, but never saw anything suspect. He seemed, for most intents, a twitchy, intense, normal college student with an obsession with tinkering.

Only a few things bothered Levi about the boy, besides his messy nature. The way Mikasa described him was always about the same in Levi's mind. He was sensitive, and happy, even past the loss of both parents within the same two years, and obsessed with the flying. Yet the way he would describe this boy would be intense, risk taking, and obsessed, but not with flying. No, there wasn't a bird picture anywhere, or a plane poster as his engineering nature would dictate, not even books on Da Vinci or the Wright Brothers. Happy would not be anywhere in that list.

Normally Mikasa's depictions of Eren were of a happy young man. He was on the swim team for the college, he was average in his class because he didn't study as much as he did work. He had a job at the mechanics shop down the street he worked at from six until closing at ten, and he hadn't even had to visit a grief counselor since the fire that had taken his mother.

Levi's vision of this boy was much different. He was on the swim team as a diver, but he came back and rested against the back of the door just rubbing his shoulders and arms for at least fifteen minutes every afternoon because his arms seemed to hurt. He wasn't just good at his work, he was obssessed on it. The last time Levi had seen Eren, almost two nights ago, he had been awakened by the sudden knock on the door and opened his eyes to smoke and light, and Eren's voice apologizing to the young blonde girl at the door who had been worried about the smell of the small explosion from his project. He'd hurt his chin with the shrapnel that had sputtered back up into his face. And Levi suspected that the grief counselor would probably have been good for Eren. He wasn't sure how old he was, but Levi expected that at this age, he shouldn't be crying in his sleep for his mother. Or be afraid to look in the mirror. Levi had found the same tint on the windows on the mirror, though it wasn't secured.

All of this had Levi curious for more. Hungry to find out more about this man he was rooming with that hardly even lived in the room. Which was why he was traipsing through the Engineering labs hallways looking around for the lab that held Eren. He was wandering the main hall when he turned to a familiar voice crying out his name.

"Levi!" Hanji called, jumping and hugging him around the shoulders. "I thought you were still deployed!"

Levi shook his head, glancing her over. She still wore her shitty glasses attached to her face like goggles, but she seemed to have grown into the look that could pull them off now. She wore a huge smile, and her big eyes exclaimed her happiness almost better than the smile did. She shifted from foot to foot with glee and excitement, and her hair was tied on the back of her head in a fluffy ponytail. She wore a green cloak with his sister's emblem on it, the Wings of Freedom as she called them, and he shook his head.

"Nah. Honorable discharge." He lifted his pants leg to reveal the titanium prosthetic they'd had to replace his foot with. "Fucked it up over there and became lo unto useless. They sent me back and told me to get a degree or two."

Hanji smiled, nudging it. "Looks good on you. You are not just some of humanity's strongest, man, you are Humanity's Strongest." She teased.

He gave her a little smirk. "Hey, are you an engineering student?" He asked.

"Nope, I'm Science Department Head, but I know my way around. What are you majoring in?" Hanji asked.

"Forensics. Gonna get my bachelors before I start double majoring for Criminal Law." He answered. "Minor in Technology."

She rolled her eyes. "Show off." She complained. "What'd you do, forget to put the Doctorate in Medicine on there?"

Levi didn't show her the smile that meant he hadn't, but he didn't tell her either. "Can you help me find my way through this place?" He asked.

Hanji nodded. "Yeah. Who're you looking for? This is the classrooms, but the labs are downstairs and upstairs is the break room for the students and teachers seperately." She explained, leading him to the front lobby.

"You know Eren Jaeger?" He asked.

Hanji's smile grew sharply. "Ah, you're looking for my small child. Come with me." Her face scrunched as she gave a concerned looking expression. "I think he fell asleep at his labspace again."

Levi let a brow come up. "That's safe?" He asked.

Hanji turned to look at him, hitting the elevator button as it dinged open and released a couple of Engineering students in it. "No. He does it anyway." She explained. "He's sweet, but he can't seem to control with himself. He's the best one in the building department out of anyone. If Armin isn't careful, he may pick up the slack and take over as Department Head."

The doors clanged open again, and Hanji led him down a slightly darker hallway than the one above, and all but skipped to the brightly lit, large lab space at the end of the hall. She pushed it open and ushered Levi in, glancing around. Hanji grinned around, smiling at the people in there. "Hellooooo, future engineers. Where is my sweet child Eren?" She crowed.

A man with a blond coconut style hair cut looked up, smiling at Hanji. "Where do you think he is Ms. Hanji? Locked in, as usual." Armin answered. "He'll probably let you in. He won't let me in. Who is the new guy?"

Hanji turned far enough to allow his body into view. "This is Levi. He was looking for him." Hanji answered.

As she said it, there was a billow of smoke following a shatter, and scream. Hanji jumped a table to run to the heavy green metal door across the way. She tried jiggling the lock, but it wouldn't come open. "Eren, open the door." She called. "It's Hanji. Are you okay?"

The door came open and Eren leaned on it, gripping his heavily bleeding arm. "Yeah. Shit, yeah, just a little miscalculation with the gas. Come on in." He suggested, waving smoke out of his face with his bum arm. He snatched the First Aid Kit off the equipment belt by the door and a clean rag, wiping his hands on his pants.

"What happened in there?" Levi asked.

Eren looked up, clinging tighter to his arm. "I'm not good at math. I'm good at mechanics. I tried guesstimating the amount of gas that I should use on these things to get them running. It was a poor choice." He answered, looking at Hanji. "Make yourselves comfortable, I just have to go into the back back for a minute."

Hanji rolled her eyes. "Please, Eren. As if those things bother me. Let me see it. We all know you tend to make it worse when you patch yourself up." She answered, reaching for Eren's wrist. He jerked it away, pointedly avoiding Levi's eyes. "What, Levi? He's got his own war wounds, kid. Calm down." She nudged Levi's titanium foot with a wrench this time, and then set the big mother down on the wall mount there for it. "Let me see it."

Very reluctantly, Eren allowed Hanji to take his arm and guide him to a relatively clean stool. The room was much like Levi had first seen their dorm when he'd first arrived. There were parts strewn everywhere, just like they had been on the desk and around the room on the opposite desk. There were some on the wall, but those he seemed to rarely need. He kept a fire path very clear around the room, and an extinguisher in every viable corner of the room, and one on each table, some old projects abandoned on the sides of the room.

"Nice. Homey." Eren glanced up at Levi when he spoke. "At least it seems to be a constant."

Eren grinned. "Your OCD giving you fits?" He asked.

Levi raised a brow. "I know how to pick locks. I can sneak in here before anyone knows I'm out of the dorm room and clean up before you come back home."

Eren looked at Hanji. "So you know Levi?" He asked.

Hanji nodded, pulling up the compression sleeve he wore apart by the tear. Levi saw a bunch of blood and a tear, but his curiousity was still not sated by that little view. He wanted to see the rest of the kid's arm. "Yeah, he and I were in the same high school class. I was the science nerd he never wanted to talk to, he was the big brother I never wanted to leave alone. Well, not big brother. I mean, look at him, he's teeny." Hanji said, fielding a smack with a well placed dodge. "Hey, not while I'm trying to help Eren."

She viewed the wound, then glanced up at Eren. "Honey, you'll have to pull the compression sleeve off so I can check the surrounding area, but it just looks like a superficial cut into the thinner skin." She explained. "Do you need help getting it off today?"

Eren looked up at Levi, then down again. "If it's just a superficial cut, I can handle it. What were you doing this way anyway, Hanji?" He asked, reaching for the First Aid Kit before getting a smack on the arm, right on his wound, from the science nerd.

She winced when he did. "Sorry. Levi was looking for you. Not sure why, but he was, so I brought him this way. We found you just when the explosion happened. What were you trying to do?" She asked.

"Well, I can't silence the ropes any farther, but the gas motor is still super loud, so I have to work on making them quieter. I thought I could make the pressurized container, but the container was an ass, and even before I put the pressure on it, the steel bent and depressurized. Too fast, apparently." He explained, rubbing the back of his head. He hissed when Hanji jerked on the compression sleeve. "Jesus, Hanji, my fucking arms hurt."

She winced again. "What happened to the topical I made you?" She asked. "Me and Marco over in the Med Department thought you would be fine on it a little longer."

Eren grinned a little. "Clean Freak over there trashed the bottle and I only had enough for about to last night. I'll be alright until you can finish the new batch." He answered, smiling.

The smile didn't touch his eyes, which was something Levi had also noticed about him. The smile never touched his eyes. He didn't smile from his soul. He smiled to deflect. People who weren't Levi weren't likely to see it, maybe his buddy from the corps, Erwin, but he doubted even that guy would see it. This kid was miserable from the deepest recesses of himself, and Levi wanted to make it change.

Woah. Huh? Well then. That was a revealing thing about Levi. He wasn't sure he was even into anyone. Growing up he'd never been encouraged to do much except keep up tradition, which he broke cleanly when he joined the corps. Which would probably explain the reason why he had never experimented with his sexuality. Was he attracted to his sister's friend? Was she attracted to him?

He'd zoned out just long enough to miss Eren's arm being wrapped up, but just saw an odd design on his skin when he tugged the sleeve down over his wrist. Hanji stood, sighing, wiping her hands on her jeans. "Alright." She sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I'll try to see if Marco can put a rush on that, love. Be careful."

Eren nodded, leaning back on his seat until it balanced on two legs. Hanji gave him a half-hearted glare, nudging him back to all four legs, but hugged him. "Be careful, and stop sleeping in your lab. You'll hurt yourself one day." She said, her voice gentle and motherly.

"Yes Mom Glasses." He promised, grinning at her until she was gone.

When she was, Eren rubbed the back of his neck, sighing. "What can I do for you?" He asked, leaning on the stool again until it comes up off of not only the front two legs, but one of the back ones as well and he was balanced on only the back right leg.

Levi raised a brow. "You have amazing balance." He said.

Eren shrugged, hardly even shifting the stool. "I'm more comfortable in a suspended state where center of gravity is really the center of gravity. Which is generally right here." Eren poked himself in the belly, just above his belly button. "Which is generally the pool."

Levi didn't let the brow come down. "You're a diver, not a swimmer." He answered.

Eren settled the chair to all fours again. He was stabilizing himself to keep from giving anything away. That was interesting. "What does that have to do with anything? Can't I like swimming too, not just hurling myself off of a board?" He asked.

"I don't think you even like that part either." Levi answered, starkly honest. "I think you have a deathwish."

Eren blinked. "I didn't think this was going in that direction. Why do you think that?" Eren asked, looking Levi dead on.

No matter how old he was, Eren was good. He knew how to limit the factors that gave anything away. What was he hiding? "My sister mainly." He answered.

"What about her? Is Mikasa okay?" Eren asked, straightening.

He tilted his head. "She's fine. When was the last time you saw her?" He asked.

Eren sighed, leaning back a little. "Mikasa...I think I saw her...Tueeeeesssday of last week? Wednesday maybe? Week before. Yeah. Tuesday of the week before last." He answered. "Why?"

Levi leaned back, settling his spine against the doorjamb. "She makes it sound like you guys talk on a regular basis." He answered. "When she does, she makes you out to be an upbeat kid who doesn't let anything put him down. A normal, spunky guy."

Eren smiled a little, still not reaching his eyes, lifting a brow. "That makes me a candidate for a death wish?" He asked.

Levi shook his head. "No. The fact that your smile never touches your eyes does. And your insomnia is another. Nightmares of a mother you lost years ago, and the crazy schedule you keep is another. I wanted to leave it alone, but you make me curious. You're in pain more than you tell anyone, physically and emotionally, and you need some kind of help." He said.

Eren let his face drop all sign of emotion. Levi could see it dissipate from his body, leaving the real Eren under the shell staring at Levi with an unnerving, Thousand Yard Stare. Levi had always hated seeing men with that look in their eyes. There was always something wrong with them. The ones that had been hit too hard, all too soon. Some in his graduating class of soldiers had come into the barracks with it, like his close friend Mike Zacarias, and they unnerved him.

"What were you before you came here? Mikasa said you were a soldier, but she never told me anymore than that. More accurately, I never listened. She talked about her family and I droned her out. It was never easy to listen to her talk about having something I wouldn't ever get to have again. I would say Navy, but something about that doesn't sit right in my core. You seem a bit harder than that. Marine?" He tilted his head, and Levi felt like he'd lost control of the situation all too quickly. He felt like he was on the wrong side of the interrogation table. "Yeah. Marine. So what'd you do? What was your job?"

Levi paused, looking at this deadened creature in front of him. "I was an interrogator." He answered. Sometimes you had to give to get. He'd let it go until he'd had enough.

"What kind of interrogator? Police interrogations, a table between you and a one-sided window, or were you the rubber hose brigade?" Eren paused, but Levi could sense it wasn't for an answer this time. Eren confirmed that suspiscion a moment later when he continued. "I could see you as both. Playing good cop bad cop, and if that didn't work, breaking out a car battery and a gas tank. Maybe the other way around. You do have an intense way of looking at someone, and apparently the gaze isn't all for show. There's some real perception there. So I'm going to hope you can listen just as well as you see. This isn't a threat. This is how it will be, or I will make you regret it Marine. You don't get to talk about my mother. You don't get to interrogate me. You don't get to tell me I need help. I've got help. I've got my own way of help. I've got me. So if you try to interfere in my life, or pull that profiling shit again on me, I will tear into every dark memory you've got and make you wish you'd never come back. Your sister sees me how she needs me. She needs a successful college Eren whose never seen a counselor over the fact that it hurts every day that he's alone. So she gets it. She didn't do anything wrong. She shouldn't have to suffer over my suffering. You don't need to fucking worry about it."

Levi stood staring, caught between anger and confusion and sadness and...pain? Yes, that was that feeling. He was hurt by Eren's words. Not the threat, or the fact that Eren was bringing up painful memories. He was hurt because Eren was rejecting the help Levi wanted to and had, subliminally, offered. He needed something other than whatever he supposedly had. But he wouldn't accept it. Levi was probably one of the few people who could sympathize with him enough to actually understand where he was coming from. He hadn't physically lost his parents, but they were as good as dead to him. They wouldn't let him home again if he wanted to come that way; he'd told them he was coming home, that he was hurt and they were sending home, and they'd told him not to come back. They didn't want him there. He had called Mikasa earlier, and she'd caught a plane to come bring him home on her own. She was so much like him, and had followed a similar road, disappointing their parents a different way.

Eren stood up from the stool, standing and grabbing his bag from the floor. He looked up at Levi before shaking his head, starting to walk by.

"I liked you, for what it's worth. Still do, because you confronted me head on about it, but you'll leave. They all do. I'm cracked. Just get used to the idea." Eren explained, stepping out when he said that.

Levi caught his arm, resulting in a hiss of pain, and a snapped glare over his shoulder. "Will you at least show me where your support is, so I know you actually have it?" Levi asked.

Eren looked like he was ready to snap on Levi again, but then he paused, looking at Levi's hand on his body, then back up at the rest of Levi. He looked him over with a skeptical eye, then gave him a considering look.

"Meet me on the roof of the Art building tonight at ten." He answered, jerking his arm away. "Wear tight pants and something that hides your face. Don't be late, or I'm leaving without you."

Levi blinked, nodding, and watching the strange Engineering student disappear through the doors before remembering that he wasn't supposed to be here for any reason at all either.


	3. Chapter 3

Levi found himself climbing the stairs of the art building at nine fifty-five p.m. even as he wondered why he was doing it. He was usually able to control his curiosity better than this, but now? No, he was fighting his metal foot on the stairs as he usually did because the artists had painted the floor of the elevator and it was off limits until it was dry, trying to reach the roof. He came face to face with the metal door, and expected to be on the roof alone until such time as the scary engineer showed up.

Instead, he pushed the door open to find Eren standing there in tight, white pants, his thighs crossed with what looked like brown leather straps leading down into his knee high boots, fiddling with a buckle that attached two metal boxes to his hips. He tensed when the door opened, but when he saw Levi, he turned back to what he was doing. "You ready?" Eren asked him.

Levi nodded, lifting up a blank white mask. Eren looked at it, shaking his head. "Not gonna work. Eye holes are too small, and you need your vision with these. Here." He tossed Levi a black long sleeved hoodie. "Pull the hood up and draw the strings tight so it doesn't fall off."

Levi raised a brow. "Are you going to tell me why your support system hides your face and requires thigh bondage?" He asked.

Eren snorted. "Thigh bondage. That's a new one. I've heard plenty out of Hanji about these. You'll have to tell her that one." He answered. "The thigh bondage is to keep my balance in the air. Which reminds me, boots off. You've got your own pair. I had to tweak this one so that you can use your hand rather than your foot on the titanium one, so your center of balance will be a little higher and to the right than mine will, unless you can use that one just like your physical leg." He glanced to Levi for any form of corrections.

Levi lifted the left leg, his real leg, and demonstrated that his balance was fine on that foot. "Just like the physical one."

Eren nodded, yanking the buckle on his tight before lifting up another of his sister's green cloaks and throwing it on, buttoning it and walking to Levi with a set of leather belts like the ones he wore. "Put these on." He demanded. "You'll need them. The bottom loop goes midway up your foot, where you would put a tightrope if you had to walk it sideways."

Levi tried for a good ten minutes to put the damned straps on properly, then growled and looked at the college boy across from him. He paused when he looked up and saw Eren covering his mouth with his hand. And a smile in his eyes. He laughed when Levi looked at him that way, and shook his head. "Alright, alright, I'll take mercy on you. I'll show you." He chuckled, removing the gear he wore and removing his shoes. He unclipped the belts from his waist, and pulled them off before dangling them like he had Levi's. "Okay, follow along, will you? I don't want to have to do this all day."

Levi watched as he demonstrated how to use the belts and get them on. It helped Levi's nerves that he explained where each belt went and why, and he hardly even noticed that they were buckled completely on when he was finished. They pulled his already tight jeans tighter to his legs in a way that was oddly comfortable, and made his leg feel more whole than it had since it had been blown off. He jogged in place a second to get them to sit just right, and Eren smiled again, though it was fading out of his eyes now. Levi felt desperate to fix that, and he was starting to accept the fact that maybe he was attracted to Eren. He didn't question it.

"I see why you wear the thigh bondage now." He teased Eren.

Eren smiled in his eyes again, then rolled them and nodded to the gear. "This stuff clips onto the main belt at your waist, and a secondary clip on your upper thigh. Like so." He demonstrated the belt that held the boxes, and clipped the boxes themselves to the upper thigh belt. "The ones you're using today are usually mine, because I just finished these, and I don't feel like dropping you because the gear doesn't work."

Levi blinked. "What does it do?" He asked.

Eren grinned at him. "Mikasa told you I like to fly. She never told you how. These...these are my wings." Eren told him as Levi pulled the belt tight, patting the metal boxes at his side. "Treat them carefully please."

Levi looked at them. He raised a brow. "How, in God's holy name, do you fly with these?" He asked.

Eren grinned, grabbing two handles on the sides of the gear and lifting them. Cord extended out of the bottoms, and he walked to the edge of the building they stood on. He faced the building opposite them, maybe only ten feet away, and crouched about five feet from the edge.

Then he started running.

"Eren, no!" Levi shouted, running to try to catch the boy, but then he was leaping, pulling those triggers in his hands and...

He didn't fall.

Out of the metal by his sides, two claws shot out, one from each hip, and grabbed the wall across, gouging into the rock across the way and the cords pulling tight. They dragged Eren to the wall, where he planted his feet on the wall and turned to look at Levi with a huge, devious grin.

"Come fly with me, Levi." He catcalled. "Hood up. Cameras aren't far, and they're looking for me for the property damages."

Levi stared at Eren, eyes wide. "How...How do you even do that?" He asked.

Eren smiled, turning to look at him while he stood horizontally off the wall. Levi wasn't sure he was awake. Eren launched off the wall and landed by Levi's side, lifting the handles he'd shown Levi. He explained the little switches, and what the lever did, how to aim the cables, and Levi made sure to listen closely, because he didn't want to end up on the sidewalk as a splatter. When he was pretty sure he had it, Eren manually pulled his cables out of the sides and slung them over two pipes approximately equidistant from each other, and then locked the cable so it couldn't keep extending.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"I'm going to pull them up, and your job is to stay upright. It shouldn't be too hard. Use your feet to keep your balance, but remember the stool." Eren said, then started pulling Levi up.

The belts held fast, and the gear pulled him off of the floor with each step Eren took away from him. Eren moved smoothly so the lift was perfect, and didn't rock Levi too hard, and Levi managed to keep himself upright until he started to slowly tilt backwards. His right foot wasn't cooperating, and the belts attached weren't moving right. He tried to balance with his other foot, but that started to send him farther backwards.

"Remember the stool." Eren repeated.

The stool. The balance Eren had displayed on the stool had been amazing, and he was shocked that the younger man could do it so easily. His center of balance was off, but he had such great control over it. The center of balance...oh right, his center of balance was seperate now. Levi quickly calculated how off the center of balance was, then adjusted to make up for it, and found himself as stable as if he were standing. It was exhilirating, even though he was only three feet off the ground, to be able to do what he was doing. He held the handles out to his side, looking down at the ground as it sunk away from him, and found himself chuckling, smiling more than he had in a while.

"You're better than I was my first time." Eren told him, and Levi looked up to see Eren had engaged his own gear off the building behind him, and was now right in front of him a few feet more off of the ground.

Levi chuckled. "This is amazing, Eren. Why don't you show anyone this?" He asked.

Eren looked at the gear around Levi's waist, then out at the night sky. The wind was rustling his hair and the cloak he was wearing, but somehow he seemed ethereal instead of more human because of it. "I'm showing you." He explained.

Those words, three simple words really, lodged in Levi's soul. "Doesn't anyone come out here with you to make sure you're okay?" He asked.

Eren shook his head. "I've never brought anyone out here with me. These are supposed to be for Armin, but it's always just been my thing. I don't want to share this with anyone." Those green eyes turned on Levi, and words left unspoken pressed the previous three words deeper into his soul.

He didn't want to share it with anyone, but he was with Levi. Why? Before he could ask, Eren released the cables slowly, lowering Levi to the ground, and dropping behind him. He repeated his previous maneuver at the wall across from them, and turned back to Levi. Levi took a deep breath, then jogged toward the wall and leapt as he engaged the gear. The claws shot out much quieter and with a bit more power than what Eren was wearing around his waist, gouging into the wall, and then he was standing beside Eren on the side of a wall. He laughed nervously, then exhiliration stole the sound, and he was laughing more. Eren smiled.

"Come on. This is hardly even flying. You haven't gotten to the fun part yet."

What Eren called the fun part was flying through the college town around them to the city and through the streets at least ten stories above the rest of the people while they walked and held nightlife. He flew with quiet abandon and grace, an exhilirated, free smile on his face that caught Levi's as the wind blew through his hair and stole his inhibitions. They flew for what felt like mere minutes, but had been three hours of joy Levi couldn't remember experiencing before this moment, with this man.

Eren paused as they were about to enter the campus again, just dangling between two buildings as he checked his phone. Levi stopped beside him, breathing heavily. "What is it?" He asked.

He looked over at Levi. "It's almost two in the morning. We need to get back." He told Levi.

Levi sighed, looking around. It was beautiful up there, with the bright lights in the city twinkling like stars, and the wind rushing through their hair even when they stood still. It didn't help that beside him, an angel with sad eyes levitated watching him with those big green gems. Levi lifted a brow. "What is it?" He asked.

Eren shook his head, his face regaining that stoicism Levi had seen earlier when he got too close to Eren's heart. Levi mourned it's loss, but nodded and followed Eren's lead as they took off again through the city to the campus and the roof where they'd left anything that could cause drag. Eren landed gracefully, a little easier than Levi's thudding, running stop, and waited for the cables to settle before unclipping the belts and pulling off his shoes to slide the belts from his waist.

"Do you feel better now?" Eren asked.

Levi blinked, looking up from removing the gear the same way Eren had been. "What?"

Eren glanced up. "There's my support. I get to fly away from all of those issues, and you don't have to worry about it, because I can handle myself." He explained.

Levi had completely forgotten why they were there. Eren had brought him here to show him that he didn't need help. That beautiful, exhilirating trip, had been to prove a point, but now looking back on it, Levi thought it through and thought it a hollow support. "It must be lonely up here, flying all by yourself night after night."

Eren didn't respond for a moment, removing his sister's cloak and dropping it onto the roof to wrap the belts in before retrieving his own belts from Levi. "I prefer it that way." He said. "Or, I thought I did."

Levi blinked. "What do you mean?" He asked.

There was no answer. Eren didn't even acknowledge that he'd asked the question, just finished tying up the green bundle before gathering the metal boxes and clipping them together. He started for the door, and Levi just couldn't stand the thought of him coming up here again to fly, a lonely, saddened bird left wingless without a family.

"Can I fly with you Eren?" Levi asked.

Eren stopped, his hand on the doorhandle, and took a deep breath. He turned his head like he was looking over his shoulder, but he didn't take his eyes off of the grey box on his shoulder. "What happened?" Eren asked. "You didn't just come back because you lost a foot. You got sent home for another reason. Tell me that, and you can fly with me."

Levi looked down at his shoes, and when Eren started to open the door and walk away, he started talking. "When we got blown up, I was taking the part of the rubber hose brigade. I hated it, but I was good at it. I knew what made people scared, and I wasn't afraid to use it. My team was there, Farlan and Isabel and Auruo and Petra, and we got raided. I had the weapons to keep myself safe, but we were held down for a few days before the rescue mission got there. What I'm allowed to say is that my foot was blown off. It was really cut off, by Taliban insurgents coming to retrieve our prisoner. My team was killed, I was rescued just before they killed me. I was still recovering when my tour was up, and Mikasa came to bring me home. I told her that my foot was blown off, but my team was killed in the explosion." Levi told him. "That's why I'm home. That's why they discharged me."

Eren nodded, standing a minute before he turned around and looked at Levi. He seemed to mull something over before he put the gear down and pulled his shirt off over his shoulders. "My parents were very strict on me being at home by a certain time every night. One day, I went with Armin after curfew to a movie, and I stayed out way later than I should have. I was going to stay at his house when I got a call from Mikasa and we made our way back to my house as fast as we could. The house was on fire, and my parents had gotten trapped inside. The fire department was on it's way, but I couldn't just leave them to burn to crisps inside. I ran in and grabbed my mother off the bed. She was already dead, already on fire, but I couldn't just let her fry. I carried her out, and burnt the shit out of my own arms in the process. The house collapsed and everything was gone. I lost everything. My dad died the year before, and I lost his ashes in that house." Eren pulled the compression sleeves down off of his arms to show the pattern on his skin Levi had assumed was a tattoo. They were burn scars, nasty, angry, red scars that looked like they hurt like hell. "They hurt all the time, so I keep the sleeves on unless I take a bath. The pool helps soothe the burn, and the ointments are all for them. The doctors say they may never heal, and will always hurt unless I let them do surgery to remove the stuff in them that are causing them to hurt." He hissed as he rolled them back up, and lifted his wings onto his shoulder.

He turned around, and this time Levi didn't stop him. Eren didn't comment on either story, simply called over his shoulder, "I'll see you tomorrow night, same time."


	4. Chapter 4

Levi went back every night that week, never understanding what brought him back after that horror story he'd been told. He didn't go see Mikasa after he found out. He hadn't spoken to anyone but Eren after that night. He only went to his classes, watching the people around him and going to all of Eren's swim practices. To watch the other boy. He told anyone who asked that it was because of his leg, but he spent most of the time watching Eren at the diving board. Again and again, he would stand at the back of the board, staring down the ladder, and look at the ground beneath him at least fifteen meters. He would stare down, like he wanted to jump at the concrete beside the pool. Then he would turn, run, and leap. The following dive would always be flawless, but when Eren came up, he would always look around, see Levi, and get out of the pool.

Levi went to the roof every night to find Eren getting strapped in, ready to fly, and some of those nights, more than not if he was honest, he would look over to see tears dripping down Eren's cheeks. Eren didn't say anything about them, never brought attention to it, but it was generally when they sat and stared at the city without moving. Stillness brought Eren's thoughts flying to catch up with him, and Eren ran desperately from them. So when Eren didn't show up for the first time in the week, Levi got pretty worried. It didn't show on his face as he made his way back to their dorms, stopping first at the pool before moving back to the room. When he got there, Eren wasn't there, but there was a note on Levi's chair from Eren.

'I won't be back for a while. Swim meet tonight. Don't wait up. Jager.'

Levi checked his watch. It was almost midnight. If the kid wasn't back by now, he wasn't coming back for the night, Levi would almost bet. He sighed, checked his watch, then plugged in his phone and tried to get a little sleep. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be getting any form of sleep tonight as long as he continued to worry about the little crush he had not showing up, but he was used to that.

When the door came open and closed heavily, Levi sat straight up in his chair, then saw who had been responsible for the sound. Eren was leaning against the door, eyes pressed closed tightly, and arms hanging limply at his side. He was tense every where but in his arms, and very clearly in pain. Levi stood up.

"Eren, are you okay?" He asked.

Eren blinked, turning his eyes to Levi by his chair, and he sighed, his eyes watery and the sound sad. "No. But you're only getting honesty out of me because you've already seen this, to be clear." Eren answered.

Levi came closer, lifting a hand to take the duffel bag from Eren's shoulder before he put it on the ground by his bed. "What's the matter?"

Eren lifted his arms, and Levi watched them shake, while the boy himself tried desperately to stabilize them. "They've never hurt this bad. I've never been in so much pain." He choked off the sentence before the tears could spill, but he wasn't far. Levi could tell that much.

Levi led him to the bathroom and ordered him to sit on the toilet seat lid. "Are you particularly fond of that shirt?" He asked.

Eren shook his head. "Just one Mikasa let me have a while ago for excersize. Probably one of yours, if I know her very well." He answered. "Why?"

"Because I'm not making you lift your arms to get it off of you. That has to come off, and so do your compression sleeves so we can put on the numbing cream. If you're in that much pain, I'll do it for you. I know what it's like to be in that much pain." He told Eren, brandishing a pair of scissors in his hand as he crouched in front of Eren.

Eren shook his head. "Don't do that. I can get it off over my head. Just give me a second." He replied.

Levi already had the scissors going up the side of his shirt along the seam so he could just slide it down the other arm. He was careful by Eren's throat, and then he was pulling the shirt down the other side of Eren's body and dropping it to the floor. The compression sleeves looked no different than usual, but when Levi touched them, his fingertips came away tinged with red.

"They're bleeding, Eren." Levi told him.

Eren looked at Levi's fingertips, where they were indeed bloody, and groaned. "Turn on the water in the bath please." He requested. "Not too high, but warm."

Levi nodded, dropping to the ceramic tub in the room right beside the toilet and turning it on with little effort. He was careful with the water temperature, then looked to Eren. "What next?"

Eren lifted his other arm up and pulled it down his arm carefully, rolling it when he could and avoiding sliding it at all costs. He dropped first one, then the other into the sink and crouched low by the tub, putting his arms just by the gentle rolling of the water. "I just have to rinse them off and pat them down with a washcloth. I'll be alright." He promised, reaching for the water with one hand.

Levi interrupted his movement with his own hands, cupping them under the water and letting it drip gently down his arms, rinsing away the red fluid seeping through Eren's skin. "You should see the doctor." He told Eren, no emotion reflected in his voice. "They could fix this. Make them heal."

Eren shook his head. "I have before. It doesn't help. Every time I do, it's always the same thing. 'Get the surgery, remove the pieces.' But I won't. It sounds sick, but it's all I have left of her. My mom..." His voice trailed, the tears spilling out of his eyes, and his eyes turned away from Levi, head dropping between his shoulders.

Levi didn't comment on the tears at first. He was worried about the boy, but he had to handle the physical before he could be trusted with the emotional. He was careful to spill the water gently over the areas that needed the rinsing, and blotted the warm washcloth along the wounds until, as Eren had predicted, the bleeding stopped and the white returned to the cloth. He knelt by Eren and was careful with the dry towel while drying Eren's arms off. He applied the creams and gels that Eren had fought him over on the first day as he had seen Eren do since that day, though Eren had never noticed him do so. He didn't question the boy on the tears until after he had found a clean set of the compression sleeves and brought them to Eren.

Eren took it without lifting his arms, but shook his head. "I need to leave them off, otherwise I'll feel worse in the morning." He answered, looking up at Levi. "How did you know which order to put them on? What would help at all?"

Levi sat on the counter after he had dried it off with a new towel. He would have to do the laundry later with the number of towels they had used by now. "You have to know I watch everyone and learn their patterns. This seems to be your only one, that and your flights. You always put them on in the order they're laid out on the counter. I assume with the way you do everything else that this is no coincidence. I even moved them one morning to see if it would do anything. You went for the same bottles in that exact order even though they were out of order and put it back where it belonged when you were done. You don't do things for no reason, Eren." He explained, pausing before continuing on. "Including not allowing the doctor's to fix your arms."

Eren's eyes lifted to Levi's before they dropped again. Levi caught shame lurking there. "Don't bring it up. Please." He whispered.

Levi leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees to keep his balance. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to hold on to your mother. It's nothing to be ashamed of." He promised. "I expected you to be messed up when I heard from Mikasa about the incident. I thought you would be a complete wreck. When she said you were doing okay, I was honestly very surprised."

"I'm not ashamed of missing her." Eren answered, anger leaking into the sadness and making the pitiful tone just a little sharper than it had been. "I'm not."

"Then why do you get so angry? Why are you so defensive about your emotions? You weren't like this before the fire. You were never like this before the fire." Levi replied.

"Because I'm the reason she's dead! If I had just stayed home that night she wouldn't be gone! I would have smelled the fire, I would have gotten her out! She would have been scarred maybe but she would be okay! I have no right to be upset when I'm the reason for it...I'm the reason she's gone..." Eren started out yelling, but they slowly devolved into sobs, and he dropped his head into his hands, pain from his arms mixing with a pain of a very different nature. "I'm the reason..."

And there was the root of the problem. There was the reason he worked so hard to be the bright, happy man everyone had known before it all. He didn't want to fail another person he loved. He didn't want their empathy and sadness because he felt responsible for his own mother dying in a fire that was never his fault. He blamed himself for not dying with her. Survivor's guilt. The poor kid...

Levi knelt beside him again and wrapped his arms carefully around his shoulders, trying desperately not to hurt the injured angel in his arms. "It wasn't your fault Eren." Levi promised softly. "If you had been home you would have died with her. You would have been killed as well. Your mother would be so proud of you today, Eren. You forged on when so many other men in your position would have given up. They would have taken their own lives or gone mad, but you fought on. You keep your grades up and keep yourself in extra activities so other people don't worry about you, and you deal with your emotions your way. But you don't have to hide them. Not from me, especially. I know how it feels to lose someone so swiftly, so painfully." He offered. "Let me in. Let me help you."

Eren shook his head swiftly. "I can't. I'm not even sure I remember how anymore." He answered. "I'm alone and there's nothing I can do about it."

"You're not alone. I'm right here."

Levi knew he was pouring his heart out to the kid, in his own way at least, but he was worried about the kid, and he knew there was no way the kid would understand what he was saying. Not through the painful haze he was in now. The physical pain wore his barriers down. There wasn't much else Levi could do now but hope.

He felt Eren's fingers curl in Levi's shirt and cling there, and then he was nodding. Levi felt weight come off his shoulder like he'd been crushed by a bus. Eren was letting him in.

Eren was letting him in.


End file.
